Political advisor to George W. Bush, John McCain, and others, Mark McKinnon was featured in this short piece by NY Times (with Redglass Pictures), in which he details how to win elections.

According to McKinnon, it’s about stories.

So much so, in fact, that the American people can set aside convictions for a compelling story:

And so, even though—on all the issues—people agreed with Gore and the democrats, all the important issues, they didn’t agree with George W. Bush, what we disproved was that they liked the fact that the was authentic. And you know, maybe you didn’t like exactly what his positions were, but you at least believed that he believed in what he was saying.